Skip to main content

Visit Project Liberal Foundation

Donate

Category: Statements

  • Statement on El Salvador Camps

    Tariff-induced economic chaos has dominated headlines, but there’s an even more consequential story that’s being overlooked. 

    On Sunday night, President Trump said he’d love to send American citizens to El Salvador’s concentration camps—at the same time his own administration argues in court they have no authority over these facilities. This is obviously absurd, given that the US is paying El Salvador to hold these prisoners, but speaks to the lengths the Trump administration is willing to go to avoid legal accountability.l 

    These moves are obviously unconstitutional, and demonstrate the president’s willingness to pervert the rule of law and our justice system. 

    The president’s illegal attempts to arbitrarily detain people should worry us all. Don’t forget, he calls anyone who doesn’t support him criminals, the enemy within, etc.

    Americans need to wake up.

  • Statement on Zelenskyy-Trump Meeting

    The overwhelming support for Ukraine yesterday and today from courageous and principled leaders—both foreign and domestic—has been heartening. Ukraine’s fight is not just against an invader; it is a battle against dictatorship, tyranny, and a brutal war characterized by numerous crimes against civilians. Moreover, Ukraine faces a regime that has orchestrated a widespread campaign of misinformation and disinformation—a calculated cognitive attack—targeting both its own people and much of the West.

    As Ukrainians fight to reclaim their occupied lands, our responsibility, while less personally perilous, is equally critical: we must free our own understanding from the grip of Russian disinformation. We cannot allow ourselves to become so detached from reality, so morally unmoored, that we inadvertently enable the authoritarian conquest and subjugation of a free and democratic ally.

    Project Liberal remains steadfast in its commitment to defending liberal values wherever they are under threat. We will continue to organize and empower those who share our vision of a free and democratic world.

  • Pardons Should Serve as an Instrument of Mercy, Not Subvert the Rule of Law

    Earlier this week, President Joe Biden issued an open-ended pardon for his son, Hunter Biden. The pardon covers 11 years and covers crimes he either committed “or may have committed” during that time. This pardon sets a dangerous precedent for future presidents and does not improve our coarsened politics. 

    In his statement about the pardon, Biden claimed that his political opponents politicized his son’s cases. While this may be true, Biden pardoning his son for all of his crimes was not the answer. The decision to include any future prosecution of crimes committed during this time is an abuse of power and an expansion of executive authority. 

    The presidential power to grant pardons stems from the  “royal prerogative of mercy” of the British Monarchy. The Founding Fathers never intended for the country’s chief executive to excuse the criminal actions of family and friends or foster a climate of consequence-free criminality. 

    Biden’s pardon is far from singular. Instead, it’s a continuation of the increasing abuse of the presidential pardon power. Other presidents have used the power to exonerate real criminals on purely political grounds, such as Richard Nixon’s pardon of Jimmy Hoffa and George H. W. Bush’s pardon of those responsible for the Iran-Contra scandal.

    More recently, President-elect Donald Trump issued a host of similar pardons just before leaving office in 2020. These pardons included Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying about having contact with Russians; Roger Stone, who was convicted of witness tampering and other crimes; and Paul Manafort, who was convicted of several crimes, including failure to disclose his business dealings in Ukraine and other places. 

    Trump also pardoned Charles Kushner, his son-in-law’s father, who orchestrated a plot to retaliate against his brother-in-law. Trump chose Kushner to join his cabinet, along with several nominees with questionable pasts, such as Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, and Pam Bondi.  

    Equality under the law—the notion that those who make and enforce the law must also be subject to it—is a core tenet of liberalism. When presidents repurpose an instrument of mercy to subvert that value, it diminishes us all. No one is above the law in a true democracy. Project Liberal fights to preserve that principle and opposes any actions that erode it.

  • The Execution of Marcellus Williams Highlights the Urgent Need for Death Penalty Reform

    Liberalism anchors itself in the foundational recognition of the core dignity of every human being. Respect for humanity sits at the very heart of the liberal proposition. Therefore, there is no greater affront to that proposition than the callous casting aside of a human life. The justifications for such an act should be few and the bar high.

    That the state should have the power to take life in the administration of justice is highly problematic in the best of circumstances. That it should exercise that power capriciously defies the concept of justice itself.

    The execution last night of Marcellus Williams by the state of Missouri over the objections of not only his counsel and supporters but also prosecutors and the family of his alleged victim is a miscarriage of justice.

    As liberals, we value our institutions and the role that they play in shaping a free and democratic society. We value the rule of law – the concept that justice be applied equally and fairly to all. When justice is blind to prejudice and ego, our institutions are strengthened. When it is blind instead to its own flaws and mistakes and the suffering they inflict, our institutions are eroded.

    If we value our liberal democracy, if we value rule of law, if we value our shared humanity, then it is incumbent upon us to demand a justice that is restorative, healing, and fair. A state that will kill out of vengeance, or pride, or shame at botched trial procedures they do not want to revisit is a state that must not be granted that power at all.

  • Alleged Russian Funding of Illiberal Political Voices Underscores the Need for a Concerted Effort to Support Liberal Democracy

    The developing story that Tenet Media, home to some of the farthest-reaching illiberal voices in US political discourse, have allegedly been substantially funded by the Russian state propaganda apparatus is deeply troubling.

    There is perhaps no greater opponent of liberal values today than Vladimir Putin’s Russia. If the Department of Justice’s indictment is true, Russia is engaged in a concerted effort to undermine and attack liberal democracy through the funding of illiberal voices such as Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and others.

    It is a cliche to say that America’s enemies hate us for our freedom. It is perhaps both less trite and more accurate to say that they hate us for our openness, our pluralism, and our willingness to welcome and engage with the world. These liberal values, which have undergirded our liberal democratic system since its founding, are the core of the American identity and a threat to the rule of autocrats everywhere.

    Is it a wonder then, that the foreign enemies of our liberal democracy are funding and promoting a domestic politics antithetical to those values – a politics of xenophobia, isolation, and identitarian grievance?

    If there was any doubt how acute the need for a concerted and unified effort in defense of our liberal values and the liberal democracy that those values thrive within, that doubt should now be gone. If there was any question as to whether illiberal values could be made compatible with the American project, it should now be laid to rest.

    Foreign governments will fund voices that seek to tear America apart, but only we can boost the voices that seek to bring us together and strengthen us in our values. Let all of us who prize those values join together in that effort.

    Join Project Liberal today and let’s build together, from America’s grassroots, something far stronger than illiberal foreign dictators like Putin can break.

  • Project Liberal Calls for the Release of Ksenia Karelina and Stands Against Russian Aggression

    Project Liberal Calls for the Release of Ksenia Karelina and Stands Against Russian Aggression

    It is imperative that those who value freedom and justice unite in opposition to illiberal regimes and in defense of liberal democracy around the globe.

    Russian courts today handed down a 12-year prison sentence to Russian-American Ksenia Karelina for a $50 charitable donation made in support of Ukraine in 2022.   Opponents of liberalism at home and abroad often idolize illiberal regimes like those of Putin, Orban, and Maduro.  They project onto those foreign strongmen a singularity of purpose that they wrongly assume aligns with their core values and beliefs – beliefs they hope a domestic strongman will come to power and similarly impose.

    What the enemies of liberal democracy here in the United States so often take for granted, as so many do, are the very protections afforded them by the liberal values they seek to overturn.  Values like the freedom of conscience to support causes of one’s choice, the market freedom to do so financially, the freedom of movement to travel without arbitrary detention, the security in one’s person and property against arbitrary seizure and search.

    The foul injustice in the treatment of Ksenia Karelina, the violation of her natural rights, and now the grave injustice of her sentence bring these differences between illiberal authoritarian regimes like Putin’s Russia and the liberalism of the democratic world into sharp contrast.

    We hope that, in light of Karelina’s US citizenship, the full force of diplomatic efforts will be mobilized to secure her prompt return.  Russian citizens in similar positions, however, can expect no such relief from the deprivation of justice.  The only permanent remedy is the wholesale end to Putin’s authoritarian regime.

    It is imperative that those of us who value our freedoms and the freedoms of others reject and oppose threats to liberal democracy at every turn.  The largest such threat at this moment is unambiguously Russia’s invasion and crimes against the people of Ukraine.

    Just two days ago, Ukraine received another 4.2 billion euros from the liberal democracies of Europe, who continue to rally support for its defense.  As this statement is being drafted, Ukraine has announced its full control over the city of Sudzha.  These latest efforts have also purportedly resulted in significant numbers of Russian troops redeploying out of Ukraine.

    Public and private support for Ukraine from the United States does not place American lives in harm’s way, nor does it represent a unilateral effort to police the world.  America, with its support, is participating in a broad coalition of liberal democracies aiding Ukraine in its defense against authoritarian invasion and the alleviation of a humanitarian crisis.  It is noble, it is just, and it should continue until the threat to liberal democracy presented by Russia’s invasion has ceased.